What Does the Dept. of Education Actually Do?

I've been sort of halfheartedly following the Betsy DeVos drama surrounding her appointment as Secretary of Education, and today I decided to take a
minute to visit the Dept. of Education website. I encourage all of you to do the same...here's what I found, the site
is broken into four main subject areas:

That's the Dept. of Education website in its entirety. Essentially, half of it is dedicated to the redistribution of wealth in the form of student
(read: taxpayer funded) loans and government (read: taxpayer funded) grants.

The third section deals with laws related to education, but right at the very top of that page, it says the following: Please note that in the
U.S., the federal role in education is limited. Because of the Tenth Amendment, most education policy is decided at the state and local levels. So, if
you have a question about a policy or issue, you may want to check with the relevant organization in your state or school district. So
essentially, there's very little content or legal oversight of education at the federal level, so this section is essentially useless save for a
handful of laws that would be better implemented and managed at the state level anyway, as the Constitution dictates.

The last section is just a clearinghouse of various data sets pertaining to education in the United States. Valuable information no doubt, but
information that would be very easily housed (and usually is) on the website of any trade group or organization whose purpose is to advocate for a
particular profession. Don't need a government website to house this data.

So to sum up what the Dept. of Education actually does, is they simply act as a clearinghouse for siphoning billions of dollars from taxpayers. Then
they turn around and decide who gets a portion of that money back, after the 4300 employees of said department skim their salary off the top. Some
goes back to help fund local schools, who could have gotten that entire dollar directly from their local tax payer but instead they get 70 cents of it
back after it's been laundered through Washington, and the rest goes to college students in the form of student loans and grants, who then attend
colleges that jack their prices way up since they know the student doesn't care what it costs, as they're not paying the bill, the taxpayer does.

Then they make a few borderline constitutional laws here and there, and oversee a bit of research.

Well for the past decade or so, apparently it hasn't done anything other than offer more funding for passing grades, which didn't necessarily have to
equate to smarter, more educated children. They just wanted high graduation rates by any means necessary. Now here we are. High grad rates, lowest
ever math and reading proficiency scores.

Over multiple generations, gradually water down the education curriculum to reduce critical and lateral thought processes. Simultaneously, gradually
inject subjective political agendas of sexuality, race, religion and politics into daily education so that upon graduation society has a brand-new
libtard.

The dumbing-down of state sanctioned indoctrination institutions like Berkeley are a testament to this. College is no longer about the pursuit of
knowledge - it's the pursuit of Trump supporters for violent confrontations, creating safe spaces and determining the best way to be offended and
channel that victimhood on off to those the lecturer told you to hate.

That's all decided at the state and local level. If you're referring to federal level curriculum like Common Core, that too is not a requirement of
states to follow. But...what the Dept. of Ed does is this: remember that money that they take from taxpayers and then give a percentage back to the
local schools? Well, if the local schools don't play nice and follow their lead, then they don't get as much of that money back. They withhold
funding. That's how they exercise their power.

The Department of Education is a perfect example of how our government works.

1. Collect taxes.
2. Disburse funds with government requirements.

The "value added" here is "government requirements." Examples are "No child left behind." This requires a great deal of paperwork on the part of
individual teachers and school districts, but there's no real evidence that it improves the education of our children. And, of course, all these
requirements add to the burden and cost of "education" as the paperwork does not contribute anything. Some of these things sound good; they just don't
do anything. Before there was a Department of Education many of these things were done by other agencies. Creating the Department of Education has
basically just added to the bureaucracy even as our schools have declined. I leave it to you to determine if there is connection.

That's all decided at the state and local level. If you're referring to federal level curriculum like Common Core, that too is not a requirement of
states to follow. But...what the Dept. of Ed does is this: remember that money that they take from taxpayers and then give a percentage back to the
local schools? Well, if the local schools don't play nice and follow their lead, then they don't get as much of that money back. They withhold
funding. That's how they exercise their power.

Is there still a NEA? National Education Association, used to mean that school curriculum was nationalized, i.e., like you said through subsidies to
help make them 'conform'.

One mans opinion...

In fact, most of these books fall far short of their important role in the educational scheme of things. They are processed into existence using
the pulp of what already exists, rising like swamp things from the compost of the past. The mulch is turned and tended by many layers of editors who
scrub it of anything possibly objectionable before it is fed into a government-run "adoption" system that provides mediocre material to students of
all ages.

I think it's more of a system to control local decisions by granting or withholding funds. There is no real good reason for it to exist to be honest
as needs are very local and unique to the area the school is in.

The one size fits all idea is not working very well, but still they want to control. I see it as nothing more than a department of extortion. You
don't do as we say, no money, when the money should be dealt out by student count without the Fed's trying to take local control away through
subterfuge.

I need only look at the applications I review often to see how poorly things are going.

So here's what I didn't mention in my OP: My wife is a public school music teacher of 16 years, and I'm a school administrator at a private arts
college. We're both 'in the closet' so to speak when it comes to our views on the usefulness of the Dept. of Education, because you know, those
open-minded academic types embrace all view points. Not.

I like the folks on this board, and I think I need new friends. Or maybe I need to move out of this town, ugh. If I posted this view on my Facebook
page with my circle of Chicago-based artsy-fartsy academics I would be eviscerated for daring to speak out against the accepted Liberal dogma. Take it
from someone from the inside - it's a freaking witch hunt in academia now, I would literally lose my job if I actually voiced any views that were even
vaguely to the right of Jane Fonda. People around my parts are seriously losing their collective minds, glad to hear there are still level-headed
folks elsewhere in this country.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.